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Cloud rEvolution: Start the Cloud Conversation
You’re ready to move to the cloud – now what?
According to the latest volume in Leading Edge Forum’s Cloud rEvolution report, it's time for IT and business to have a serious conversation. "A Workbook for Cloud Computing in the Enterprise" provides hands-on guidance for holding a workshop to facilitate that discussion, getting up to speed on cloud computing and mapping out the early stages of your move toward the cloud.
Time to talk strategy, not technology
A workshop will help you consider issues such as quality, cycle time and customer/employee satisfaction, and discover where your organization will benefit from cloud computing. The workbook provides details on logistics, advance preparation and creating an agenda, which are all critical to holding meaningful dialog.
"This is the time for a serious conversation between IT and business," says report coauthor Doug Neal of the LEF Executive Programme. "This isn't a discussion about buying a SQL database or a new scanner. It's discussing 'How are we going to change our business with these new technologies?'"
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Learn more about the LEF Executive Programme and the LEF. Download Volume 4 (PDF) and read about earlier volumes. In addition to the workbook and workshop, CSC offers a three-week cloud assessment. Learn more about our cloud offerings. |
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When – and what – to move?
When thinking about moving to the cloud, one of the most common – and difficult – questions is which applications you can move, and at what layer: Infrastructure, Platform, Software or Business Process as a Service? The workbook discusses some of the more prominent offerings and provides a framework for deciding where your application should go. In general, moving to the cloud should be an opportunity to free up management and IT attention by moving applications higher up in the stack.
Neal notes that there is often a learned helplessness that must be overcome in organizations: IT innovation was so hard in the past that staff may not at first be open to considering new possibilities. To counter that, he recommends blocking out significant time to stimulate a lot of discussion and providing a hands-on learning environment.
"What do tools like Salesforce.com look like? Show them," Neal explains.
The workbook advises beginning with a presentation on cloud computing, using on-screen presentations and real-time demonstrations of these examples to bring the cloud to life for employees. Case studies from early cloud adopters also provide guidance and best practices you can share in the workshop. It is important for both IT and business staff to fully appreciate just how fast new services can be both deployed and discarded.
Next should be a discussion of the potential opportunities for migrating IT to the cloud, within, say, a two-year timeframe. Workshop members then categorize which applications your organization uses (analysis and reporting, business management, business operations, etc.) and rate their potential risks and benefits in moving to the cloud. The report offers templates for carefully assessing the issues, identifying opportunities, evaluating challenges and creating an adoption strategy and pilot project.
Double-deep employees
Moving forward with the pilot will be challenging – but rewarding. Neal notes that the real benefit of cloud computing is not cost, but agility, and not just in IT, but in the business as a whole. With cloud computing, IT transitions from just "doers" to "teachers" of IT, providing guidance and platforms that leverage "double-deep" employees (the increasing number of employees who know both the business and IT). This will result in a huge cultural shift, as IT and business become more integrated, and the role of IT becomes more strategic and advisory in nature.
"At the end of day, the job of IT is to create economic value. And that value will be created increasingly by your double-deep employees," Neal explains. "Employees are much smarter about technology today. You need to ask, 'How can we take better advantage of that?'"